A look at what's going on in Trinidad, on H Street, and in the larger area north of Capitol Hill.

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Monday, January 13, 2014

Luxury Condos Coming To 12th Street?

The pre-fab townhouses at the corner of 12th and Florida have taken several years to actually come to market and none have sold yet as near as I can determine, but that has not put a damper on a plan to add condos adjacent to them (the amenities for which are described in the picture above). Although it is not entirely clear whether the current owners of the townhouses will also be building the condos, the condos will apparently be built immediately adjacent to those homes, if the position of the signage is any indication.

9 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I think they had one open house when it first got on the market and haven't had one since. I walk my dog by there and there's always a security guard on site. Maybe they are waiting for spring for more interest, but the $1.1M price tag is probably putting most people off. They need to go under 1M at least.

$1.1M??? Wow, their unrealistic prices have gone up with the times. In 2006 (yes, they've been sitting there that long IIRC) the sign said "In the $600,000s" and my first thought was yeah, good luck with that. It still is my first thought. History of shoddy workmanship (just ask Jimmy's Tires - oh wait, you can't) resulting in godawful ugly homes.

I agree that the prices are too high now, but in 2 years when all the density in NoMa and H St comes online, those prices will probably seem reasonable given their size.

Jimmy's Tire is slated to become condos as well so, in the end, these townhouses will probably blend in the new construction.

I went into the 1228 I St pop-up when there was an open house and they were very well done and sold very quickly. So Beasley appears to do good work and these should look very nice. The old townhouse next to this condo project is now the sore spot on the block; it looks terrible.

I did attend the open house, and wow are they badly laid out. Each floor is exactly the same, they didn't alter the prefab layout at all, and it is just... stupid. The front rooms on each floor have their own bathroom, by which I mean, they have a room the size of a double closet with a bathtub in it, and then an adjoining toilet/sink room, but tiny closets. They ought to have put the bathroom all together and made the bathtub room a walk-in closet.

They do have basements, with tile flooring and utility rooms and storage, I guess. The stairs are a bit much, elevators make sense, but the elevator wasn't working when I was there, so couldn't tell how fast it was.

The roof had a great view, but was "green" with little mosses everywhere, gravel and concrete slabs, making the usable room rather small, only really big enough for a grill and maybe a few chairs.

Also, the finishes were shoddy, shoddy, shoddy. Everything needed to be re-sanded, have another coat of paint, and/or leveled properly. Overall, I can't imagine someone looking for a $1.1 mil home springing for one of these, you'd have to drop a hefty chunk just to smarten up the poor workmanship and make the floorplan more usable. It definitely didn't feel "move-in ready" to me.